Party Voting in American State Legislatures

The political systems of American states have remained, until recent years, a neglected field of study. Students of state government have found it easier to make meaningful comparisons of administration or legislative organization than to capture on paper the dynamic political forces which appear to be unique in each state and often are completely transformed by each group of personalities that wander on and off the political stage. V. O. Key's excellent study of the political forces in Southern states pointed up the lack of similar surveys of Northern states. In particular, the role of political parties in state legislatures has been largely ignored. The report of the American Political Science Association Committee on American Legislatures points out this problem and also notes that “it has been generally assumed that partisanship counts for less in most state legislatures than it does in Congress.” Professor Lowell's famous study in 1901, which showed a comparatively low level of party voting in all of the five states he studied except New York, provided the empirical evidence for a conclusion that has been widely shared by later writers.